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Understanding freedom through visit to Auschwitz
My daughter, Amanda Wood, is a sophomore at Westfield High School and an Alumni of People to People Student Ambassador program. She recently visited Europe and did a report on Auschwitz. She was the only Indiana student out of her group of 49. I believe who reads this report will be touched by her story.
Submitted by Henrietta Sharp
By Amanda Wood
Many people today don’t realize what freedom means. I have heard many Americans say, “What freedom? We have to pay tax on just about everything.” I have even caught my self questioning our true freedom. I never truly knew what freedom meant until I saw what it would be like to have it taken away. I was given an extraordinary opportunity to visit a place where freedom was only a memory. Auschwitz ended over one million lives making it one of the most moving places I have ever been.
As the bus approached the entrance to Auschwitz, 49 pairs of eyes stared blankly out the windows awaiting one of the most touching tours of their lives. I personally did not know what to expect as I walked the streets of this once torturous place. Once we all stepped off the bus, we walked through the entrance building where a grim statue sat recognizing the victims. It was a morbid person entwined around a barbwire pole. I looked at my friend, Amber, and all that would come out is “wow.” Her response was, “What can we really expect,” which is so true. Walking into a horrible place like this and seeing a beautiful statue wouldn’t serve much purpose. When we walked under the gate that read “work brings freedom” chills went through my body as I began to think about the thousands of people who saw the gate entering but never got the chance to see it going out.
Auschwitz was not as I pictured. I expected dirty conditions with hundreds of barn-like buildings meant for housing the prisoners, but this was not the case. Rows of standard apartment-like buildings were at the camp. Many of the buildings were transformed into museums, showcasing many of the prisoners’ valuables and belongings. Esthetics, crutches, casts, wheelchairs and many other health aids were displayed in the first chamber. It was hard to look at these items knowing that the owners of these things were the first to be executed. Other buildings held suitcases, shoes, clothes, and many valuables. The worst items for me emotionally were the baby clothes. As we shuffled along the dusted dirt road, we all silently grieved for the victims. Every one of my loud, rambunctious friends became mute to the world and just thought inside themselves. My main thought was how someone can kill innocent people without any guilt or remorse. The walk around Auschwitz took a lot out of all of us, but the worst was yet to come.
Auschwitz Birkenau was the second stop of our tour. This camp is what I imagined when I think of Hitler’s concentration camps. By the time we reached the second camp the coolness of the air was gone and it was hot. The heat was almost unbearable and I couldn’t help to think how miserable the prisoners must have felt - starved, hot, lonely, scared and most of all hopeless.
When we walked under the famous entrance, I began to wonder what it would be like going to a place like this, not knowing what was going on. When I looked down I saw one main train track which split inside the camp into three separate tracks. The tracks separated so they could get more prisoners in at once. The fact that success came from entering more and more victims horrifies many, including me.
Their “shelter” seemed only as a way of belittling the victims, making them sleep in something that would be housing for animals. They did not provide any protection from the heat or the cold. When I walked into the shelter the situation just got worse. Wooden slabs, one on top and another on bottom, lined each wall. Sleeping conditions were about as bad as they could get. They slept on these unbelievably hard cots literally piled on top of one another. I can’t imagine the physical and very much emotional suffering they went through every night, let alone every waking minute of their day. One of the buildings I entered had a long, rectangular, hallo box that rose about two feet off the ground, which had several holes cut out the top. I knew exactly what this was because of the horrific scene in “Schneider’s List” that showed a young boy climbing into to this type of toilet system for a chance to survive at least one more day. These toilets were like cheap outhouses. Each box had about 16 holes creating enough stench, filth, and disgust to make even the torturous Nazi’s cringe.
The last shelter was built no different than the rest. I began finishing up my photos of the shelter when I turned around and noticed something different in this room. I saw a tiny bit of color lying on a cement box a little ways away from me. Color was one thing that was not to be found in all the other shelters. When I approached it tears filled my eyes. It was a flower. An innocent, red flower lay in one of the most awful places in the world. A place built to exterminate an entire religion, and here lay a flower.
My last picture was of this flower as I wanted my last memory of Auschwitz to be. It reminds me that horrible things did happen not only in this place, but all over Europe. But the religious bond that sent them to these places, that cost millions of people their lives, also helped give them the strength to hold on for one more day. It amazes me that in the midst of all this evil, people still have the hope to carry on. Because of this flower I know that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Submitted by Henrietta Sharp
By Amanda Wood
Many people today don’t realize what freedom means. I have heard many Americans say, “What freedom? We have to pay tax on just about everything.” I have even caught my self questioning our true freedom. I never truly knew what freedom meant until I saw what it would be like to have it taken away. I was given an extraordinary opportunity to visit a place where freedom was only a memory. Auschwitz ended over one million lives making it one of the most moving places I have ever been.
As the bus approached the entrance to Auschwitz, 49 pairs of eyes stared blankly out the windows awaiting one of the most touching tours of their lives. I personally did not know what to expect as I walked the streets of this once torturous place. Once we all stepped off the bus, we walked through the entrance building where a grim statue sat recognizing the victims. It was a morbid person entwined around a barbwire pole. I looked at my friend, Amber, and all that would come out is “wow.” Her response was, “What can we really expect,” which is so true. Walking into a horrible place like this and seeing a beautiful statue wouldn’t serve much purpose. When we walked under the gate that read “work brings freedom” chills went through my body as I began to think about the thousands of people who saw the gate entering but never got the chance to see it going out.
Auschwitz was not as I pictured. I expected dirty conditions with hundreds of barn-like buildings meant for housing the prisoners, but this was not the case. Rows of standard apartment-like buildings were at the camp. Many of the buildings were transformed into museums, showcasing many of the prisoners’ valuables and belongings. Esthetics, crutches, casts, wheelchairs and many other health aids were displayed in the first chamber. It was hard to look at these items knowing that the owners of these things were the first to be executed. Other buildings held suitcases, shoes, clothes, and many valuables. The worst items for me emotionally were the baby clothes. As we shuffled along the dusted dirt road, we all silently grieved for the victims. Every one of my loud, rambunctious friends became mute to the world and just thought inside themselves. My main thought was how someone can kill innocent people without any guilt or remorse. The walk around Auschwitz took a lot out of all of us, but the worst was yet to come.
Auschwitz Birkenau was the second stop of our tour. This camp is what I imagined when I think of Hitler’s concentration camps. By the time we reached the second camp the coolness of the air was gone and it was hot. The heat was almost unbearable and I couldn’t help to think how miserable the prisoners must have felt - starved, hot, lonely, scared and most of all hopeless.
When we walked under the famous entrance, I began to wonder what it would be like going to a place like this, not knowing what was going on. When I looked down I saw one main train track which split inside the camp into three separate tracks. The tracks separated so they could get more prisoners in at once. The fact that success came from entering more and more victims horrifies many, including me.
Their “shelter” seemed only as a way of belittling the victims, making them sleep in something that would be housing for animals. They did not provide any protection from the heat or the cold. When I walked into the shelter the situation just got worse. Wooden slabs, one on top and another on bottom, lined each wall. Sleeping conditions were about as bad as they could get. They slept on these unbelievably hard cots literally piled on top of one another. I can’t imagine the physical and very much emotional suffering they went through every night, let alone every waking minute of their day. One of the buildings I entered had a long, rectangular, hallo box that rose about two feet off the ground, which had several holes cut out the top. I knew exactly what this was because of the horrific scene in “Schneider’s List” that showed a young boy climbing into to this type of toilet system for a chance to survive at least one more day. These toilets were like cheap outhouses. Each box had about 16 holes creating enough stench, filth, and disgust to make even the torturous Nazi’s cringe.
The last shelter was built no different than the rest. I began finishing up my photos of the shelter when I turned around and noticed something different in this room. I saw a tiny bit of color lying on a cement box a little ways away from me. Color was one thing that was not to be found in all the other shelters. When I approached it tears filled my eyes. It was a flower. An innocent, red flower lay in one of the most awful places in the world. A place built to exterminate an entire religion, and here lay a flower.
My last picture was of this flower as I wanted my last memory of Auschwitz to be. It reminds me that horrible things did happen not only in this place, but all over Europe. But the religious bond that sent them to these places, that cost millions of people their lives, also helped give them the strength to hold on for one more day. It amazes me that in the midst of all this evil, people still have the hope to carry on. Because of this flower I know that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
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